Category Archives: Families

Mothers Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to be Presbyterians

Posted on May 4, 2017 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

So sang Willie and Waylon about cowboys, buy you can be a Confessional Lutheran and be a cowboy. The same can’t be said of being a Presbyterian. Never the twain shall meet. The thing conservative Presbyterians are closest to meeting … Continue reading →

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A Laughing Matter that isn’t Funny

Posted on January 24, 2017 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

I have a thirty-year-old cartoon in my files from Christianity Today. It depicts an absolutely frazzled man on the edge of a bed, phone plastered to his ear, with a freaked-out expression. The caption is: “My wife just left me, … Continue reading →

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Walk Back Now or Be Marched Out Later

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

No prophet to be sure, but I am willing to predict that the churches that have women voting now will have women preaching within fifteen years and LGBT pastors within twenty.

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Look What They’ve Done to Our Brains

Posted on August 15, 2016 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

“Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma” is a 1971 hit by Melanie Safka. Listen to it. It’s painful. She complains not only look what they have done to her song but what they’ve done to her brain. Let us … Continue reading →

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Role Confusion

Posted on August 1, 2016 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

Higher Things much to the disservice of adolescents everywhere last year published an apologetic of sorts by an LCMS clergyman for his lifelong desire to be a woman which they later apologized for. Higher Things didn’t endorse the man’s lust … Continue reading →

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Luther’s View of the Fear of God

Posted on March 22, 2016 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

I share these notes from Albrecht Peters’ Ten Commandments. I have always been troubled by the standard, and it seems to me fascicle, distinction between fearing God in awe and in terror. Luther you will see below speaks of servile and … Continue reading →

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Letters from the Trashcan – Confessing or Pretending?

Posted on February 15, 2016 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

Here’s a letter I wrote to The Lutheran Witness in June 2015. They never published it or responded at least in print. They might have online and I missed it.

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The Mother and Child Reunion

Posted on November 30, 2015 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

Obviously Paul Simon had mommy issues. “Mama looked down and spit on the ground every time my name gets mentioned.” “The first thing I remember, I was lying in my bed/ I couldn’t’ve been no more than one or two/ … Continue reading →

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Don’t Bother Me with the Facts; I want Fads

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

Everyone knows the joke about the person who does not want to be “bothered” with the facts. A January 20, 2014 Time magazine article is startling in its honesty that people aren’t interested in facts but fads….This from a magazine … Continue reading →

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My Spirit Rejoices Regardless of Who Said It

Posted on September 8, 2015 by Rev. Paul R. Harris

At the most recent ACELC conference I met a layman. I will call him Leon for that is his name and he would not shrink from being identified.  He was at a conference recently where the Reverend Doctor Jeffery Kloha … Continue reading →

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